Will doubted that. Tony had clearly been testing him.
The window rolled down again. Tony tossed the can out. “Cayla used to sell ’em for me on Craigslist.”
“That’s dangerous for a woman.”
“I always did the drops.” Tony opened another beer. “College kids, mostly. We ain’t sellin’ the cheap stuff.”
Will didn’t press for details, but he was looking at Tony Dell in a new light. Faith would need to make some calls to Hilton Head and Sarasota. Tony struck Will as exactly the type of criminal who would flip on his own mother if it saved him jail time.
“Anyway,” Tony said. “We ain’t doin’ that Craigslist shit anymore. Big Whitey kicked my game up a notch. I got more cash than I know what to do with.”
“Craigslist is safer.”
“Nickel and dime, bro.”
“Big bills, big problems.”
“The bills get big enough, you can buy your way outta the problems.” Tony turned the wheel hard into a packed parking lot.
Will recognized the building. They were at Tipsie’s. The neon sign on the roof showed a woman sliding up and down a pole. “You sure you wanna be back here?”
“It’s cool.” Tony parked the truck. “I was by here before I went to Cayla’s.”
Will felt the hair on the back of his neck go up. “Why’d you do that?”
“Same as you checking out that cop in the ICU, seein’ did somebody recognize me.”
Will didn’t believe him. “And?”
“And … we’re cool.” The affable Tony was suddenly back. He pulled the keys out of the ignition, shouldered open the door. “Come on, Bud. I’m still thirsty.”
Will got out of the truck, though every atom of his being told him something bad was about to happen. He didn’t really have a choice. Jared Long was in the hospital. Lena Adams had almost been killed. There was a drug dealer out there who seemed to enjoy hurting people. If Will didn’t do his job right, a lot more people would wind up at the hospital. Or in the ground.
“Come on, Bud.” Tony walked like a bantam rooster. He was obviously hiding something. And he was very pleased with himself about it.
Will slowed his pace, trying to figure out what he was walking into. Not for the first time, he found himself wondering if Tony Dell was, in fact, Big Whitey.
Faith had brought up the possibility almost from the start. She was generally good at seeing around corners, but Will had disagreed with her. He’d met Tony Dell. He’d spent time with the man. He didn’t come across as a master strategist.
Maybe that was the point.
Everything about Tony screamed petty criminal. He worked a shitty job. He drove a shitty car. He lived in an apartment that was three doors down from a strip mall. As for his police record, he’d been arrested twice under the open bottle law, both misdemeanors. There was one charge for possession that had rolled off after a successful stint in rehab. Another charge for dealing had disappeared from the court docket on a technicality. Loitering. Jaywalking. He was a nuisance criminal, not a heavy hitter.
If Tony Dell was really Big Whitey, then the man was a genius.
Will’s iPhone was in the front pocket of his jeans. He wondered if the tracking chip would work through the club’s metal roof. Sara had GPS in her car. The system cut out the minute she drove into an underground parking lot. Will guessed it was all the steel and concrete messing with the signal. Probably the same thing would happen to his phone inside Tipsie’s.
They were ten yards from the door, but the music pounded so hard that Will felt it traveling up from the asphalt. His eardrums turned the noise into one long rumble.
Tony glanced back at Will before pushing open the door. He wasn’t smiling, which should’ve been Will’s first warning. The second warning was more obvious. The minute the door closed behind Will’s back, a hand gripped his shoulder.
Will turned around. He was used to being the tallest guy in the room, but the man behind him was approximately the size of a refrigerator. Not a standard one, either—more like a Sub-Zero with the motor on the top.
There was no use asking questions.
The Refrigerator nodded toward the back. Will got the message. The man’s hand stayed clamped to Will’s shoulder, acting as a rudder as he pushed Will through the crowded bar.
Tony led the way. He didn’t appear to be surprised by this latest development. He certainly wasn’t worried. There was a nasty grin on his face, which Will saw every time the man glanced over his shoulder to make sure Will was following. The strobe lights and mirror ball picked out the cuts and bruises on his face, making them look like badly applied makeup. Tony must’ve been hurting, but his expression was one of pure glee.
There was no denying that he’d set this up beautifully. Tony had wormed his way into Cayla’s house. He’d tricked Will into leaving with him. It was Tony’s idea to fix the sink. It was Tony’s idea to strap Will’s bike into the truck. He’d obviously anticipated the problem. There just happened to be a winch in the back of the truck along with a couple of four-by-four posts to use as a ramp. When this was all done, he would probably use them to roll the bike into the river.
Will took the deepest breath he could manage. The sour smells of alcohol and sweat filled his lungs. He reached his hand into his pocket. His thumb found the power button on the phone. He pressed it three times to engage the recording device. Either Amanda would listen to Will talking to some bad guys or she would listen to some bad guys murdering Will.
The Refrigerator jerked Will to the side, avoiding a crowd of boisterous drunks. The route to the back of the club was circuitous. The stage snaked through the room. Every pole had a woman doing something obscene to it. The men crowded in, pushing against the stage until a bouncer shoved them back, then pushing forward again on the off chance that it’d work the third or fourth or hundredth time.
Tony stood at a closed door with a sign on it. The shit-eating grin was still on his face. He waited for Will and the Refrigerator to catch up. The grin got wider as Tony pushed open the door. The room was dark. The hand on Will’s shoulder shoved him forward. Will saw that the room wasn’t a room, but a long hallway. What little light they had came from the open door. The last thing Will saw was the Refrigerator closing it.
Tony’s mouth went to Will’s ear. “Move.” He pushed Will down the hallway.
Will considered his options. He could easily take Tony Dell. He’d pushed him around like a rag doll before. But that had been the old Tony, not the Possibly Big Whitey Tony. Sometimes, the physical size of a man didn’t matter nearly as much as the size of the fight in the man.
And Tony had help.
He had a lot of help.
Will pressed his hand to the cement-block wall as he walked down the hallway. He became painfully aware of his full bladder. Sweat dripped down his back. He imagined his Glock, the way the grip felt in his hand, the fact that the safety was a hair trigger built into the main trigger that only engaged when your finger pulled back. Not that any of this mattered. The gun was locked in a safe in his closet back in Atlanta.
There must’ve been soundproofing in the back of the club, because the music wasn’t so unbearable anymore. Will felt something in front of him. He panicked, then realized he was touching a curtain. Will pushed the material apart. There was more light in this part of the hall, courtesy of a green Exit sign over the door. Will would’ve run full out toward it if not for the second Refrigerator blocking the way. He made the first Refrigerator look more like a mini-fridge. His arms bulged at the sleeves. His shoulders were almost as wide as the doorway. He had a Bluetooth device stuck in his ear. As Will approached, he tapped the earpiece and mumbled something incoherent.
Refrigerator Two pulled back a curtain on the wall. There was another door with a sign. Will could recognize words he’d seen a million times before. This one said OFFICE. The second Refrigerator opened the door. His hand was so big that the knob completely disappeared.
Will shade
d his eyes against the sudden bright light. The back room of the club was remarkably similar to the type he was used to seeing in mob movies: Black ceiling, dark red walls. Liquor posters with naked women. A white shag rug. A large metal and glass desk. A black leather couch with three fat rednecks sprawled across it.
They were eating pizza from a box on the glass coffee table in front of them. The odor of cheese and sausage turned Will’s stomach. He tasted bile, felt some black-eyed peas roil up into his mouth.
The rednecks examined Will and Tony with idle curiosity. In a mobster movie, they would’ve been well-dressed Italians. Macon’s version was considerably more down-market. They wore T-shirts that stretched across their bellies. Their jeans were low on their hips, but only because they didn’t want to go up six sizes to accommodate their expanded waistlines.
Refrigerator Two closed the door. Will saw that he’d missed something across the room from the couch.
There was a man tied to a chair. Rope cut into the bare flesh of his arms and chest. His head hung down. The scalp was ripped at the crown. The head wound wasn’t the only source of blood. His hands and feet had been sliced open. There were dozens of X’s cut into his chest and abdomen. The wounds weren’t deep enough to kill, but deep enough to cause excruciating pain.
The man had been tortured.
“Damn,” Tony said, not with shock but with admiration. “Didn’t know y’all had company.”
“Shut up,” one of the rednecks said. He used a folding knife to clean underneath his fingernails. “You do what I tell you to do?”
“Don’t I always?” Tony answered.
“Watch your tone with me, boy.”
“Yessir,” Tony demurred.
So much for Tony being Big Whitey. Will gathered the redneck was in charge. He had the air of a man burdened with responsibility. His two henchmen ate their pizza like they were waiting for their turn at the bowling alley. One of them had a bottle of beer to wash it down. The other had a Diet Coke.
The redneck kept cleaning his nails. No one seemed interested in rushing him.
Will just stood there. This wasn’t the first time tonight that he’d wondered whether or not Tony Dell was leading him to his death, but it was the first time he actually saw how it might happen. The man in the chair was still alive. Blood didn’t run like that if the heart had stopped beating. His breaths were shallow. His muscles twitched involuntarily—first the arm, then the calf. A low humming noise came from his throat. He was probably praying for his death. They had cut him. They had beaten him. And then they had taken a dinner break because they were in no rush to end his suffering.
Tony wasn’t as patient. Or maybe he was just stupid. He took a Baggie of pills out of his pocket and tossed them onto the desk. “Where’s the big man? You said we were gonna talk.”
“Shut up,” the redneck repeated. He finished cleaning his nails. The knife blade was about four inches—not long, but sharp, with a wicked curved tip. He slowly folded the blade back into the handle, his eyes on Will the entire time. “You gotta problem?”
Will shook his head.
“We gonna have a problem?”
Will shook his head again.
The redneck stood up, groaning from the effort. He was a big guy, not muscular like the matching refrigerators but fat around the middle.
He walked over to the desk. His gait was slow, cumbersome. He picked up a file folder from the desk. “William Joseph Black.” Will waited.
The redneck picked up a pair of reading glasses. He didn’t put them on. Instead, he used them like a magnifying glass on the file.
He read, “Born in Milledgeville, Georgia. Sealed juvie record. Joined up at twenty-two. Got kicked out at twenty-five. Couple of assaults on some women. Beat down a mall cop. Served time in the Atlanta jail. Pissed off some feds in Kentucky. Wanted for questioning on a stickup and a couple break-ins.” The redneck waited. “That about sum it up?” Will didn’t answer.
He tossed the file back on the desk. “You’re renting a room at the Star-Gazer Motel off the interstate. Number fifteen. You park your midnight-blue Triumph motorcycle in the space two doors down. You eat at the RaceTrac. You work at the hospital. You come here to get your dick hard. Your mother died while you were serving in Iraq. Your father is unknown. You have no siblings and no family to speak of.”
Will let his lips open a slit to take in some air. The only reason he’d chosen to ride a bike was to make sure no one followed him to Atlanta. To Sara. Will’s heart thumped as he waited for the redneck to tell him her address.
Instead, the redneck asked, “Zeb-deeks?”
This time, Will didn’t respond because he didn’t know what the hell the man was talking about.
“Zeb-deeks?” the redneck repeated. “You know him?”
It was a name. A man.
The redneck waited. His patience seemed in endless supply.
Will stumbled through Bill Black’s life. There was no high school or college, just Air Force and jail. The name sounded foreign, but his military file wouldn’t have those kinds of details. Zeb-deeks was probably a nickname, which normally wouldn’t help Will except that there was only one guy in Bill Black’s life whose name started with a Z.
Zebulon Deacon had been knifed at the Atlanta jail for ratting out his crew. Bill Black had been in the same cell block. He would know of the guy. He would certainly know the nickname.
More importantly, Black would also know you didn’t rat out anybody without a fight.
Instead of answering the redneck, Will shrugged.
“You don’t know him?”
Again, Will shrugged.
The redneck said, “Junior?”
One of the henchmen lumbered up from the couch. Junior was as big as his boss, but younger. Undoubtedly stronger.
There was no preamble. Junior punched Will so hard in the face that he saw flashes of light. His head snapped back. His neck cracked. The bridge of his nose felt like a hatchet had struck bone.
“Zeb Deeks,” the redneck said.
Will shook his head—not to disagree, but to get his senses back. He’d been punched in the nose more times than he could count. The worst part came when you sniffed and the chunk of blood sitting in the back rolled down your throat. Will struggled not to vomit as he swallowed it down.
For the fourth time, the redneck said the name. “Zeb Deeks?”
Junior pulled back his fist.
“All right,” Will said. “Yeah, I know him. Snitch got what he deserved.”
“Where’d he get it?”
“Quad.”
“Where’d he get it?”
“In the junk,” Will said. “They stabbed him with a broken toothbrush. He bled out in the yard.” Tony chuckled. “Bet that hurt.”
The redneck’s chest rose and fell. He studied Will for a moment, then nodded toward the last henchman on the couch. The third man stood up just as slowly as the others, his knees popping, his gut bulging. Contrary to physics, he and Junior worked fast. Before Will knew what was happening, his arms were pinned behind his back.
The redneck walked over to Will. He smelled of pizza and alcohol. He was a smoker. He breathed like a steam engine. He was big and he was white, but Tony had made it clear the redneck wasn’t Big Whitey. Will doubted he would ever meet the man who was in charge of this gang of violent hillbillies. He doubted he would see anything other than the moldy back room of this club for what little time he had left in his life.
The redneck held up his hands so Will could watch what he was doing. The handle on his folding knife was pearl with gold accents. The light caught on the blade as he opened it. There was blood on the hinge, caked into the rivets, probably from carving X’s into the man tied to the chair. The redneck was a natural with the knife. He held the handle with a light grip, almost like another thumb or finger.
Will flinched as he felt the sharp stainless-steel blade trace across his neck. Then up the side of his face. Then underneath his eye. The redne
ck pressed a little harder and the skin opened. Will was so terrified that it didn’t even hurt. He wouldn’t have even known he was cut but for the bead of blood that rolled down his cheek.
Will closed his eyes. He wasn’t here. He wasn’t in this room. Maybe talking to Cayla and Tony about the beach set him off. He could smell the salt in the air, feel the warm, gentle breeze rolling in off the ocean.
Three months ago, Sara had taught Will how to fly a kite. They were on the beach in Florida. The kite was yellow and blue and had a long white tail. Will had never taken a beach vacation before. All his knowledge about Florida came courtesy of Wikipedia and Miami Vice. Sara was a good teacher. Patient, kind. Sexy as hell in her bathing suit. Her father had taught her how to fly a kite when she was little. He’d been worried that Sara would feel pushed aside by her new baby sister, so he’d taken her on little day trips to make her feel special.
Will’s eyes shot open. The knife was in his ear—not the soft fleshy part, but the bit right at the inside where a thin layer of cartilage lay against the skull.
The redneck was smiling, enjoying the effect. The man had perfect white teeth. His gums looked almost blue against them.
Will didn’t move. The knife was needle sharp. The tip broke through his skin, sliced open the cartilage. A drop of blood slid inside his ear. With excruciating slowness, it traveled down the canal. Will felt a shudder coming on. It started slow, like the rumble of an oncoming train. A slight tremble, then a shaking that built and built until the earth started to move and his teeth were rattling and the ground felt ripped out from under him.
The redneck jerked out the knife just in time.
“Fuck!” Will shook his head violently. The grip on his arms got tighter. He shook his head again. The blood was still moving inside his ear.
The redneck laughed as he folded the blade back into the handle. “Take off your clothes.”
Junior and number three released him. Will jammed his pinkie in his ear and moved it like a clapper in a bell.
“Take off your clothes,” the redneck repeated.
Will glared at him. “Go fuck yourself.” He headed toward the door, but Junior stopped him.
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